Oh, there’s also a video, because Jim finally got around to editing my footage. I shot the DSLR stuff from the ground, and others got the aerial stuff. I also managed about a half dozen GoPro cameras during the event.

2015.07.19

Mutt Cutts was one of the cute cars. You may know it from the “Dumb And Dumber” films. Well, here’s a tiny replica. It wasn’t the fastest, but it was the furriest. This was one of those cars that we worried would tip over in every turn. It didn’t.

Sweet Tooth, built by Collin Royster, a prop-maker in Kentucky, was a damn impressive build. The clown head and forks were for decoration only, and got removed for the races.

Phantom 48 returned once again! These guys just keep refining their already fast and reliable car. The rat rod impressed us with its looks in 2013 and hasn’t changed much cosmetically, but from what I understand they’re constantly tweaking the code running on their controller.

The Cartastrophe Jeep also returned in 2015, and just like Phantom 48, their car looks about the same, and performs about the same. Fast and reliable, most of the time, except when it breaks.

KITT from OMG is the car from Knightrider, and it did good, not too fast, and not too much breaking down. A good mid-fielder.

The Humninator, the only in the series with a full suspension system! The Humninator is a take on The Terminator theme, and a Hummer. A pretty fast car, though it suffered a bad failure in KC, Scott is fixing it up for Detroit!

Herbie (The Love Bug) is just adorable, and is the work of Chris Lee (from Nashville’s Kessel Runners Racing) super-star Wars Nerd and prop-builder.

The Minecart (also known as “Steve” was a big wooden box that surprised us all with its speed and agility. There’s some great reasons to build your car as a big wooden box. An unexpected surprise with this one!

The second car from the Cartastrophe was the Mark III from Danger Mouse. I am unfamiliar with the series, but the car is a wedge of cheese. It did well for the first showing.

Jurassic Rover is another really nice build from our friends from the south. I can’t remember which state they were from, but the car was beautifully done.

Duct Tape & Zip Ties car is an old classic, build mostly from old bikes. It’s not fast, but it is (somewhat) reliable and goes for the “slow and steady wins the race” idea.

FUBAR brought their old green truck all the way from New Jersey! Bill and his team keep fixing it and breaking it and racing it and having a good time. That’s what it’s all about!

LEGO Car (as we called it) was built by a team of high school kids. The body was foam and kept breaking, there was a Razor scooter underneath for steering, they used 6 motors, of which between 1 and 3 worked, they blew their controller and used a relay, and they were known as a “rolling chicane” but they had fun and were a crowd favorite. Awesome.

It was definitely crazy, with eighteen cars we ended up splitting one of the races into two heats, one for “fast” cars and one for “slower” cars. (And hey, Audrey drove Lotusaurus Wrecks to victory for Milwaukee Makerspace in the slow race!)

Once again I did a lot of filming during the event, and this time had three GoPro cameras in place. Here’s the official #PPPRS video:

But wait! There’s more! There’s a YouTube playlist titled Power Racing Series – Detroit 2014 with nearly 40 videos of the action. I’ve still got a lot of uploading to do, including more Moxie skits, but it should keep you busy for a while.

As usual, there’s so much going on at Maker Faire, it’s hard to see it all. While in town we also got to visit OmniCorpDetroit and i3Detroit, both awesome makerspaces in the Motor City.

There are still a few more races this season, including Fort Wayne, Indiana, New York City, and even something in Milwaukee, Wisconsin! I’ll be at that last one, as it’s five miles from my house, though I’m not sure about the other two… If anyone wants to sponsor me to attend a Maker Faire, let me know!

2014.07.21

Disclaimer: I’m not really much of a car guy. I mean, I own a car, but I’ve never been into repair and maintenance of them. Probably because when I was in high school there were “gearheads” (people totally into cars) and I just didn’t get it. I’ve mostly considered cars as a means to get from point A to point B. I’m more concerned about being able to haul things than I am about doing it in some super-powerful manner or even looking good doing it.

While I’m still not really into “regular” cars, I’ve had a good time being involved with the Power Racing Series, where we modify children’s toys and race them. Milwaukee has had a team since the start, and I’ve been involved for three seasons now. It really is a combination of serious fun and serious engineering, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that repairing a car body by drilling holes in the plastic and connecting pieces with zip ties is the right way to do it.

2014.07.01

Last year we did a little Power Racing Series event in Fort Wayne, and at the last minute I was asked to do the filming. Fort Wayne was fairly laid back as compared to some of the other bigger events, but it was a ton of fun. I handed all the footage to Jim at PPPRS and the video turned out good (check it out!)

This year my services were requested again, and I had a bit more time to prepare. Once again, Jim kicked this out pretty quickly, especially considering I handed him about 50GB of footage. (I had a total of five cameras running during some of the races.)

Chances are good I’ll be shooting again in Detroit at the end of the month, and there’s a chance I’ll be shooting in New York in September. If you see a guy laying on the tires with a camera, that’s probably me. (And yeah, I’ll get around to doing my own edit at some point!)